ERNIE 073
by Akktri
Summary: An autobiography of a Xenomorph.
1. Chapter 1: Growing Up

I was born in a scientist's chest cavity. Due to no fault of my own, I burst from his chest, ending his life prematurely.

My earliest memory is of me running from tunnel to tunnel inside a vast research complex, trying to locate the female who birthed me.

Since everyone in my species is of the egg laying variety, everyone is a mother. Therefore, I technically came from a single parent home. This is not to garner any sympathy. I do not expect any. I am just stating a fact.

I didn't know my father very well. I just remember mom telling me to go back and eat every part of him so I can grow up big and strong. Under her watchful eye, I did what I was told. I devoured every part, including the bones and marrow.

My mother was beautiful.

I didn't say anything funny.

I'd tell you what I thought of your appearance, but I, unlike you, have manners.

By the way, it's a misnomer that I can't actually see. I see very well. Under the hooded dome that serves as my brain casing, I have three eyes: one in the center for heat vision, and two normal ones.

Our domes are not, in fact, opaque, but rather like the one way mirrors they have on your `cop shows.' So when I talk about beauty, I'm not just talking about smell or sound quality, though mom was pretty wonderful on that front, too.

As I was saying, my mom was sleek, muscular and graceful, with a glossy slime sheen unparalleled by any other. I admired her poise, her charm, and her self confidence.

Her face was a healthy obsidian color, her features beetle-like, and she had a way of distending her jaw and extending her second mouth that really made me smile.

We were close, but I didn't have a family like you understand it. It's more like a pack. But we all care deeply for one another.

Maybe not so much for the little things we impregnate with larvae.

When my life began, I wasn't much to look at, just a small banana shaped creature with tiny hands and a long whiplike tail.

After I ate my first human, head to foot, I didn't need to eat for three months. Instead, I would just ride on my mother's shoulders as she galloped majestically through the strange series of steel boxes your people called a building, taking in all the sights.

By the time I got bigger, I probably knew more about that building than the architects who designed it.

My first real kill was a German shepherd. I actually preferred eating it to the fatty meat of my host body, and it kept me full for a month.

It turned out the dog was often the sole guardian of something called a `baby', a small micro version of your adults, so when I got hungry again, mom encouraged me to eat that one as well.

When I saw it sleeping peacefully in its crib, I balked. The round cherubic face warmed me to the core, so much, in fact, that I became adverse to eating what she called `hoomans' after that, and would subsist on nothing but rats and bugs and laboratory animals for an entire month.

During this time, I got larger, and as I grew, I became hungrier and hungrier, and mom insisted that I break down and eat another `hooman.'

As the hunger grew too great, I finally agreed with her, though I still refused to eat the baby.

Instead, I ate something called `Reverend.'

Ever since I had finished my first host body and rode mom around the facility, the peculiarities of hooman philosophy and related practices tantalized me with its sweet scent.

I was enraptured by their music, and would make mother pause outside the researchers' doors so I could listen to their strange melodies with their seemingly incomprehensible subjects. I heard the song about the Sweet Little Sixteen, and the Hot Rod Lincoln, and sometimes The Mighty Wind. I didn't know what any of these things meant, but they stirred my heart and filled me with a yearning for that new and different world so unlike my own world of brutal killing.

As we crept through the ventilation ducts, I would stop, and listen with puzzlement as some of the men in the building, mostly miners and warriors, would gather together around a table, fold their hands together, and talk to the air. It made no sense to me at the time, and I'm not sure it makes sense to me now, but it was an enigma that I would turn over in my mind every night when I went to sleep. I would thrash in my bed of slime as I tried ineffectually to piece together the information.

Sometimes, I would sneak away from mother's watchful eyes and just lay down in the ventilation shaft, listening as they sang song and said strange foreign words like God and Jesus.

That practice stopped, of course, when I fell asleep and someone muttered about there being a funny smell and acidic slime cutting holes in the metal vent. Panels came open, flashlights shone around, and I heard several mutters of upset.

Not wanting to get caught, and not wanting to eat them, I fled from there and did not return for quite some time.

"Reverend" was frequently the leader of these little group meetings, a little wiry older gentleman with a stubbly face and an army uniform. `Military Chaplain', I believe you call them. Clutched in his arms was a black leatherbound book, the meaning of which I did not understand, except it was often present during the meetings. He clutched this book like it were a weapon.

When he saw me, I watched with fascination as he crossed himself, for a reason I did not understand, muttering something about God and Jesus.

Intrigued by this gesture, I mirrored him with my dainty little claws, which caused him to visibly relax and tell the air, presumably where God and Jesus were, how thankful he was about the miracle of something or another.

I too was overjoyed. I was finally in direct contact with the man who puzzled me with his confusing behavior, and felt certain I'd get some answers for once.

But I was also hungry.

I asked the man about his book and what the meetings were about, but he didn't understand a word I said. He only got pale again and backed away, pulling out a communication device to summon his friends.

And so I killed and ate him.

In between nibbling on his corpse, I would thumb, or rather claw, through his strange book, peering at the symbols and trying to decipher them, but it was all no use because I didn't know how to read.

When I was done eating, I gave it up, stowing it inside an access panel for a future time when I could make better sense of it.

I became larger, though my exoskeleton still had a whitish sheen to it, and I still resembled a toothy eel with no face.

My legs got longer, my arms stronger, my tail more powerful.

I joined my big sisters on hunts around the station, becoming depressed and listless as they killed and ate the other people who had been attending the meetings.

I had first been acquainted with the emotion of guilt when I had killed `Reverend', but now the guilt came back to me double.

I refused to kill my own religious man, allowing the last one to go free and run away, nibbling from my companions' kills instead.

At this point, it seemed the last man had told, or the inhabitants of the station had gotten wise to us, for the very next day afterwards, a pair of men in army clothes appeared, arguing with a man in a white coat about killing `extraterrestrial lifeforms.'

It seemed, when they saw us, that the scientist had lost the argument, for the moment they saw us, the two soldiers opened fire on my sisters with their heavy machine guns, leaving their two heads nothing more than exploded oozing husks smoking on the metal grating that served as the floor.

So terrified was I about this unfolding that I immediately crossed myself.

To this day, I don't know why I did it. It wasn't like I understood their strange religion or what the symbol actually meant.

I guess my thought as I was cutting a vertical line in the air across my chest, then the horizontal, was that this was an appropriate gesture to be making when one was about to die.

Suddenly, the white coat was raving like a madman about me possessing humanlike intelligence, urging them not to kill me. I heard the words `study' and `experiment' being thrown around quite frequently, but I didn't know what that meant, so I wasn't alarmed.

The next thing I knew, the were slamming a transparent container over my head.


	2. Chapter 2: Hunter

I hissed and spat acid at the glass, but I was still young, so the acid wasn't strong enough, plus it was glass, apparently the same type their scientists used to store acid.

They slid a piece of metal under the glass, then a piece of something I think they called "Asestus," neither of which I could easily escape through. I tried to get out by throwing myself against the sides, but that only resulted in me being deposited in a "Ledbox," which seemed to be some kind of tough metal shaped into a container.

The lid of this box slammed shut, and there was an argument about air holes and the use of something called "Tarantilissers".

A moment later, the red beam of a thing called an "Azer" nearly punched a hole in my tail as it burned a hole through the roof of my prison.

I heard words like "parts per million," "atypical," and "Klorrofour" being thrown around, then a small tube appeared in this new opening, filling the container with a strange gas, presumably the Klorrofour.

The gas didn't do much of anything, as far as I could figure. I only fell asleep because I was bored of staring at the walls of my prison.

Okay, so maybe, being young, and having relatively undeveloped air bladders, I guess I could have been somewhat affected by it, because the air was pretty much...gas, of some kind. But mostly it was boredom.

When I awoke, the first thing I saw was the plump muskrat face of some scientist guy. I was so spooked that I spat acid on the glass and crossed myself.

Glancing around, I saw that the shape of my prison had changed during my slumber.

In addition to the improved lighting, a wall of thick glass surrounded me on all sides, the top perforated with tiny holes for air. Heavy walls of metal, or possibly Ledbox, melded with pieces of "Plaztek" penned in the glass thing around the rear and top, leaving me with only one interesting view, and Dr. Muskrat was blocking it.

"See that?" the man was telling someone outside the frame of my prison. "This could be the find of the century. Scientists have always theorized that religion was an evolutionary development, but now we could be on to solid empirical evidence proving that assertion is essentially correct."

"I don't know, Kurt," said the person outside my obstructed field of vision. "The only thing I'm seeing here is the ape-like capacity for mimicry."

"Mimicry? Hah! Its fear response provoked the creature to invoke a sort of protective spell, that's what I think. Yes, they appear to have developed their own aboriginal beliefs, and we are just now becoming acquainted with them."

"C'mon. Those things don't even know what a crucifixion is!"

"What if it means something different to their culture? What if it's instinctual to make signs of protection over one's chest when your life is threatened? Cross symbols have been known to appear in several non-Christian artifacts across the world. It could be proof that it is universal in every sense of the word."

"I don't know about that, Doctor Newton. This guy definitely seems Catholic."

Dr. Newton laughed. "You're not seriously-"

"It was a joke. Like I said, it's mimicry. He probably saw one of us doing it at some time or another and appropriated it."

"Still, it may help to examine the creature's pineal glands, possibly set up some electrodes and monitor how it responds to certain stimuli."

The conversation literally went over my head.

"I'll get you out of here," I heard a voice hissing from somewhere behind one of the walls. It sounded like my friend, Hissandra. Okay, so that's not her real name, but it doesn't have an English equivalent.

I heard a loud bump, then another.

"Jesus Christ!" Dr. Newton's companion cried.

Recognizing the phrase, I decided to finish the thought. "Amen," I hissed.

The stranger laughed, but Dr. Newton gave me this look like I had grown another head.

The two suddenly got hushed.

"It spoke," Newton muttered.

"I heard."

Encouraged by this interesting response, I attempted communication again. "Jesus. Amen."

"How is this possible?"

"And why? Did someone actually think they had souls to save?"

"Beats the hell out of me."

"God. Amen," I said hopefully.

"Maybe it's swearing."

"I'd very much like to cut this one open and see how its neurons are operating."

Mind you, I couldn't read, or even piece together sentences, so I wasn't scared at all.

I have no rational explanation whatsoever, then, for the idea that came to me next.

I just had this image of the book studiers folding their hands and speaking, so I did my own impression of them doing this, hissing, "Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy."

The disembodied voice burst out laughing. "This guy is great! We should put him in a show and charge people for admission!"

I sat on my haunches like a dog, nervously wagging my tail.

"It's a shame to cut him up. I mean, what if we can teach him things?"

"He's not a German shepherd, Douglas. He's a cold blooded extraterrestrial predator."

"Yeah, but cutting him open..."

"We're not going to kill it, we're just going to do a little minimally invasive surgical procedure. From the other specimens, we have already deduced the location of the brain, and molecular resonance scans will pinpoint the exact centers we wish to monitor."

"How are we going to make it hold still? It seems to be showing a high resistance to sleeping gas. We had to put two different ones int here, and the thing still didn't look very drugged when we put it in."

"Did you try any intravenous solutions?"

"Are you kidding? That shit will melt!"

"Lord have mercy," I said. "Christ have mercy. Amen."

Dr. Newton furrowed his brow, leaning close to the glass. "Can you understand me?"

My tail curled into a question mark.

"Let me try one," said the other voice.

And then Newton steps aside and I'm looking at a long narrow face with a big nose and long messy hair.

"Hey, little guy," the man said. "My name is Doug. What's your name?"

I just hissed, failing to comprehend.

He patted his chest. "Doug."

"Dug," I repeated.

"Yes! That's me!" He pounded his chest again. "Me, Doug!" Then he pointed at me. "You?"

I hissed in response, then said "Dug."

"Me. Doug," he repeated. "You?"

Okay okay! I thought. I get it! You're Dug. But we don't make sounds like that.

Sighing in frustration, I pounded my thorax, letting out a series of clicks and hisses.

"Right! Right!" the man said excitedly. "That's your name!"

He pointed at me, calling me an asshole in my own language.

My name is Hunter In The Starless Void, which contains syllables similar to our word for anus. The two words don't sound anything alike if you pronounce them correctly, but I guess if you mangle any name enough, it can sound obscene.

Since I now understood the gesture for no, I used it, pointing to the man as I called him an asshole. I then pointed to myself, repeating my name.

He nodded in apparent understanding. "Kurt. Write this down. The word for human in their language is..." And he said asshole again.

Well, I thought. If the shoe fits...

He gave the introduction thing another go, and passably managed "Hunter."

Not wanting to be at this all day, I gave him a violent nod.

"Got another one, Kurt. This is his name..." And he pronounced it correctly again.

I wagged my tail, somewhat pleased.

"How am I supposed to write this?" Kurt muttered from somewhere out of view. "It's all noises!"

"I don't know. Maybe make a symbol for clearing your throat, rolling your R's, one for clicking, one for hissing, and one for a growl. You got the cameras recording, right?"

"Sure, sure. As long as you can keep track of this if there's a malfunction."

I heard a pen scraping rapidly across paper. "What's the first one?"

And so they documented the necessary information.

"What now?"

"He seems to have an aptitude for the language. Maybe we could teach him a little bit more? Maybe show him a few programs?"

"I don't know," Kurt sighed. "If we're going to make a genuine study of this species variant, we can't contaminate the data by imposing our culture onto it."

"All right. Fine. What if we put probes in his brain, and then show him some educational material? You know, see how the brain activity changes?"

Kurt groaned. "Yes, yes. Get the tranq cannon prepared. Small darts. Go for squirrel dosage. We'll double it if it doesn't work."

The doctors both disappeared for an entire minute, allowing me a full view of the strange environment obscured by their huge heads.

I was in a lab. The place had cabinets full of canisters and bottles and jars of things I couldn't comprehend.

When I saw the severed head of someone that looked like my relatives, and one of our hearts, I let out a scream and crossed myself, cowering in the back end of my prison.

"Jesus Christ amen!" I cried.

"Mother said you spend too much time listening to Hoomans," Hissandra said. "I think she was right."

She was referring to her mother, of course. The Hoomans had slaughtered my sisters.

"I have bad news, Hunter," she hissed.

I shook my head. "I'd rather not hear it."

I heard something humming around me, then a muffled voice in the back saying, "Now! Before it turns around!" 

And I felt something stab me in the hindquarters.

I felt a tingling, and my eyes crossed as I was hit with a mild sensation of vertigo.

"They're deceptively hardy. Give him another just to make sure."

I whirled around just in time to receive another stabbing jolt.

I growled in frustration, snapping my tail angrily as a fog entered my brain.

Once the fourth thing hit me, I started feeling really tired. I rolled over on my side and drifted unconscious.

When consciousness returned, I discovered that all five of my limbs had been fitted with restraints, and my head throbbed in a strange way.

It almost felt like I had been fitted with a hat.

Of course, I've heard that brain tissue doesn't have that much in the way of alerting one to injuries.


	3. Chapter 3: The Fifth Lobe

I wasn't under glass this time, but I was still trapped. I was staring into another lab, with rows of stainless steel tables and computers and large tanks containing many of my brethren in a liquid solution.

I was terrified, but there wasn't much I could do about the situation.

When the long haired man appeared, I hissed in fright and spat in his direction, but he anticipated this and ducked away at the last moment.

"Whoa!" he cried. "Easy there, little guy!"

And then he pulls out a stack of laminated cards.

"Look! I got something for you."

And then he also pulled out a piece of meat.

"Ah?"

I _did_ feel a bit hungry. My drool sizzled as it fell on...whatever it was I'd been secured to. I couldn't move my head enough to look down.

"We're going to play a little game. I'm going to hold up a card, and you're going to read it, and if you do well, I'll give you a treat. Got it?"

I didn't get it.

"Dug," I said.

"Yes. I'm Doug. Now pay attention."

And he holds up a card with the letter A on it.

I snapped to attention. I had seen the letter on a soda machine, and it was repeated numerous times in the dead man's book.

"Ayy," he said.

"Ayyy," I repeated.

He fed me a piece of bacon then.

As nice as that was, I was hungrier for the knowledge he was doling out.

"Fifth lobe is activated," I heard a voice behind me muttering. "Must be the speech and cognition areas. The brain stem is completely dark. He seems to be in a meditative state. Are you sure you should be feeding it bacon?"

We went through the entire twenty six letter alphabet, and an entire two packages of bacon. He let me sample cooked and uncooked. The cooked version was interesting, but the uncooked kind was what really got me thinking that maybe I didn't have to eat Dug and his friend.

I then knew the letters, but still couldn't communicate.

"B-I-B-L-E," I spelled.

"Bible," Doug said.

"Bible," I repeated.

I couldn't figure out why you pronounced it like `eyeball' instead of `bibblee', so my lack of understanding kind of depressed me.

I sighed.

"Do we have a bible in here somewhere?" Doug asked his cohort.

"Do I look like I read the bible?"

Doug frowned. "I'll be back in a minute."

He was actually gone about ten minutes, but he returned with a yellow book in his hands. It looked different, but it had that same word on the cover.

"Ah?" he pointed to the cover. "Bible!"

"H-O-L-Y," I read. "Hoelye."

"Holy, yes," Doug said. "It means, um, really really pure..." He paused, apparently realizing that I didn't understand the word. "Pure is like, um, really, really good."

"Good," I muttered, not following.

He opened the book and held it up for me to read.

"G-O-D."

He pointed to the ceiling. "God."

I sighed as I stared at the other words. There had to be thousands of them on that little page. I was overwhelmed by it all.

"Uncle Dug, what that?" I heard a squeaky voice saying outside my field of vision.

"It's...an alien."

"What's the alien's name?"

"It's..." He said "hunter" in my language.

"What's that in English?"

"He doesn't have an English name."

I heard a sigh in response. "I know. I'll think hard and make a name for him."

"Okay. You do that, sweetie. Have you met with Big Bird today?"

My tail curled into a question mark. Again, the sounds they made did not connect with meanings in my brain.

"Yes, uncle. Today we read a book."

The little voice, it was charmingly stupid and pleasant to listen to. I tried to move my neck to get a better look, but they had braced it against something. I sighed.

As if reading my mind, I saw Doug bend down and then I was looking at this fat cherubic face. A little girl with curly blonde hair.

She smiled and waved at me. "Hi!"

I waved back. "Hi."

She frowned at Doug. "Why you have him stuck in that thing for? Why won't you let him move around?"

"Honey, um, you see those things sticking out of its head? Those are electrodes we're using to measure its brain. We don't want the little guy rolling around and pulling them out. It could hurt him really bad, and mess up the experiment."

Her eyes widened. "Oh. So what have you been doing with him?"

"Oh, just teaching him the ABC's and seeing how his brain reacts."

"Big Bird knows the ABC's. Why don't you have him talk to Big Bird?"

"Honey..." Doug paused, then kissed her head. "Sarah, you're brilliant!"

"No," said Dr. Newton.

"What!" Doug protested.

"Just no."

"But it's perfect! We can monitor the program at every node and measure brain activity. You've seen the test scores on children. He'll be communicating fluently in no time at all! Think about how many volumes of alien culture we can mine from this little nugget!"

"I can't believe this. You actually want this creature to experience Sesame Time."

"And how did you first learn English?"

Dr. Newton sighed. "Fine. But what about your daughter? The creature is sure to melt the contacts."

"She'll be fine. She can already read, can't you honey?"

"Yes. Wait. What are you doing with Sesame Time?"

"We're going to take apart your headset and put it on the little guy."

"But how am I going to meet with Big Bird now?"

"Use your imagination. That's what Big Bird taught you, didn't he?"

"Yes, but what will I do?"

"You can read, honey, can't you?"

"Yes, uncle."

"You'll have to do that from now on, then, honey. You see, it's very important that we teach, um, little guy how to talk so we can learn things."

"But I want to talk to Big Bird!" she almost sounded like she were crying.

"Honey, do you want to keep talking to a fictional character in a dream program, or do you want to see little guy actually talking to you?"

"He already talks. He said hi."

"He's smarter than that, Sarah. We're going to find out how smart."

She sighed. "Can you buy me another Big Bird dream?"

"Sure, honey. I'll order one for the next interstellar shipment."

"But that takes a looong time!" she pouted.

"I think we have a spare child's headset somewhere around the base," Dr. Newton muttered. "I'll ask Becky if her son still has it in his room somewhere."

"Did you hear that, Sarah? We'll look for a spare, okay?"

"Okay, uncle."

Doug disappeared again. When he returned, I saw him dismantling a headband with things sticking out of it.

He soldered something to a piece of one of their telephone headsets, then brought the thing over to me. It caused shooting pains when he fastened it securely to my head.

It was the stuff they already put there, not the device itself, that caused the pain.

I felt a rhythmic thrumming on the sides of my head, but nothing else happened.

"Is he meeting Big Bird yet, uncle?"

"I'm trying to get him there, darling."

"Try lobe five. That may get better results."

"We don't know if that's the part that regulates dreaming. It's easier when they just have temples."

He scooted the electrodes down a bit, waiting for something to happen.

I blinked, and I saw brownstone. I flinched.

The man moved the electrode. Nothing again.

"Wait," said Newton. "Move it up some. I got a blip."

The probes moved, and my eyes lost focus.

I blinked, and I was somewhere else, surrounded by brick buildings.

They were houses. Dwelling places for humans. I recognized them from photographs I'd seen around the base.

Of course, those pictures didn't even remotely resemble what I was seeing.

My heat vision was not working for some reason, and even my sense of smell did not alert me to the presence of strangers.

I could see colorful figures in the distance, but I practically jumped when a bright yellow creature popped out in front of me.

"Hi!" it said. "Sorry to startle you. My name is Big Bird! What's your name?"


	4. Chapter 4: Sesame Time

I and my companion stood in an alleyway between buildings.

A few seconds ago, we were on a street, I think, but then I saw a flash, and something jarred loose a memory of the crawlspace I and my mother had spent many hours sleeping in.

Home.

The image seemed to snap like a rubber band, and I was back with Big Bird, standing in an alley this time.

As I stared at those vacant blue ping pong balls it had for eyes, I was struck with the irrational thought that this was home, that the crawl space and mama were right around the corner.

I felt urine leaving my body, but I couldn't see any coming out. Apparently nobody peed in this universe.

Out of the corners of my consciousness, I could hear Dug complaining to someone about it, and Doctor Newton saying that I shouldn't be expected to use the toilet, and he'd try to get me an appliance or training pads.

All of this came to me as meaningless noise.

For several minutes, I just stared at this strange yellow creature, examining the unusual carpet-like texturing of its beak and feet, its fake Mardi Gras feathers, watching its chest rising and falling in apparent breathing rhythms.

The bird radiated a feeling of intense loneliness and a need for acceptance. It made my stomach churn just thinking about it.

How could this nonliving thing be anyone's friend?

And how was it that I was feeling its emotions? I felt violated.

The bird craned its neck in puzzlement, waving its gold mitten-like hand as if to say, "Earth to Hunter! Is anyone there?"

It then tried a different tack. Pounding its feathery chest, it said, "Me. Big Bird. You?"

I hissed and clicked out my name.

The bird stiffened like a robot for a moment, staring vacantly into space.

It then appeared to smile. "Did you say Sean Michael?"

I didn't understand, so Big Bird pointed to me and said, "You. Sean Micheal."

"No," I hissed.

The bird slumped its shoulders, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Could you please repeat it again?"

And then, when I didn't respond, "Me. Big Bird. You?"

I repeated myself.

"Oh!" the bird cried. "Hassan Abdulaminajab! Yes?"

I just stared at him.

"It...sounds like you speak Arabic." Big Bird said very slowly. "Would you like an Arabic translator?"

"What...Arabic?" I hissed.

"It is the language of many countries of the Middle East." And then he asked me if I spoke Arabic in Arabic.

I just shook my head. "English," I sighed.

Big Bird looked super excited now. "Okay!"

He scrunched up his shoulders. "Is it okay if I call you Hassan Abdulaminajab?"

I sighed and nodded, mostly out of frustrated resignation.

"Right. Hassan. Can I call you that for short?"

I nodded. If I were capable of frowning, I would have.

Looking visibly relieved, Big Bird said, "Okay. Hassan it is. But if you want to change your name at any time, just let me or any of my friends know, and we'll pass the word around immediately!"

I whipped my tail around, wanting nothing but to exit from this nightmare.

Big Bird put his paws on his knees, stooping to my level. "So. Hassan. Welcome to Sesame Street. Are you ready to have some fun?"

The bird radiated excitement and excessive joy, stirring in me the thrill of the hunt.

The invasion into my emotions became too much for me to bear all at once, so I lashed out, both from outrage and the thrill.

I leapt into the air, driving my head, fangs and claws into the creature's voluminous stomach area.

Instead of bursting open in a spray of blood, the meat of its round body merely rippled like a waterbed, and I found myself flying through a complicated string of numbers and symbols arranged in an elaborate spiderweb pattern extending to infinity in all directions.

I blinked, and my body was slamming into a brownstone wall behind Big Bird's tail feathers.

Groaning, I shook myself and got up from the ground, only to find that I was yellow.

I couldn't see much without a mirror, but a glance downwards told me that I'd become a hybridized puppet of myself, with gold mitten hands and feathers.

Big Bird whirled around clumsily, radiating a feeling of pain.

"Ow!" he cried in a loud voice. "That hurt!"

And then his body rippled all over, like a wave traveling through a floating water droplet.

Big Bird's skeletal structure, or whatever could be described as such, suddenly underwent a startling metamorphosis.

The ping pong ball eyes disappeared into his skull with a loud pop, the beak elongating, mosquito-like from the front of his face.

The creature's head squashed and stretched backwards in a long banana shape, the sides of his face spreading out like the head plate of a Triceratops.

It retained its fat belly, but its spongy orange legs bent and reshaped themselves in insectoid arrangements, its useless wing arms turning into a pair of bug forelimbs, topped with functional looking golden wings.

A long spiky tail burst from his rear end, curling scorpion-like behind his body.

Still yellow. Still carpet-like in texture.

It looked like a grotesque puppet caricature of my grandmother.

"You hurt me, Hassan!" the creature hissed.

I swallowed hard, backing further into the alleyway.

"No!"

"Why did you hurt me? I was only trying to be your friend!"


	5. Chapter 5: Simulation

Big Bird wasn't so much a bird anymore, but I appreciated the change. It made the creature more appealing, a sight that brought me both amusement and comfort.

"I'm sorry," I hissed, and somehow the thing that was once Big Bird understood.

The creature clapped its claws. "Again! Let us nonlethal hunt!"

Oh.

At last I understood this "fun" thing.

The nonverbal message was that I was supposed to follow Big Bird around to places where I presumably would find fun, but I wasn't raised to be polite, so I just scampered ahead, out of the alleyway to the street.

I found myself at the intersection of four buildings, a pair of apartments, a large factory, and a library.

I tried to sniff the air, but the only thing I detected was the smells of fresh baked bread and pizza. The rest was an absolute vacuum of scent, useless for aiding my survival in this strange world.

Humans, I thought. Somehow they've created this dream for me to exist inside. But how to get out? Did I want to get out? The world seemed pleasant enough. Comfortable, even. I at last encountered someone who understood me. It felt..._almost good_.

When I turned around, I noticed a huge orange-brown dog puppet thundering towards me. It seemed that the inhabitants of this realm invariably held the element of surprise.

I jumped back with a start.

"It is okay, hunter," Mutant Big Bird churred in my language. "This is Barkley."

The creature spoke in such disarming tones that I at first did not register the fact that it was not speaking English. Well, except for the dog's name.

"He is not dangerous or edible. No one in this land is."

I did not trust this statement, but I accepted the idea that this large thing, that didn't look like any dog I'd ever seen, or eaten, was unharmful and wished me well due to its limited brain capacity.

The creature barked and licked my face like pets I've seen, but it had a man's voice when it made sound. I accepted this strangeness as part of the dream.

A trash can flew open in the alley and a green head popped out.

"Hey! What's all that racket! I'm trying to sleep!"

The negative vibrations to his tone made me growl with fear and anger.

"Oscar. Friend," Big Bird said in both English and my language simultaneously.

"Friend," I repeated in English.

"I am not your friend!" Oscar yelled, slamming the lid back down.

"There are many types of humans," Big Bird explained in clicks and hisses. 'Some are nice, some are bad, and some are disagreeable but have good in them if you can see it."

I stared at Mutant Big Bird in shock. "How is it that you speak my language?"

"Sesame Time exists only in your mind. When you disrupted my programming, my A.I. system incorporated information from your brain in order to compensate for the error."

"What is A.I.? I asked.

"Artificial intelligence. I am a machine. A tool which you can use to learn the humans' language and facets of their culture. But I also have a personality program, and you will find things more enjoyable if you play according to the construct."

"Why would you help me?" I asked Big Bird. "What do you get in return?"

"I am programmed to be your friend. I get no reward. It is simply my function to be amicable."

"I don't understand, I said."

"The jar that imprisoned you served its function without expectation of reward. It is simply there. I am also simply there, though fulfilling the function of a friend. Do you understand?"

I nodded warily. "So you do not truly care about me."

"I am programmed to care, and learn how to care. In some ways, I am more caring than a human."

There was no ego to these words. Big Bird stated this as fact.

I was struck simultaneously with the overpowering emotion of intense love, and the cold feeling that its caring was as meaningless to it as a Coke machine dispensing product. It made the insides of my stomach churn just thinking about it.

As I contemplated this, I slowly began to understand the meaning, and meaninglessness, of all human entertainment, why they stared at boxes with moving pictures and gazed at books, and why they put things like Sesame Time in their heads. They were a vain species, seeking to be loved, and to love, even if the object expresses only the illusion of love in return.

"Which should I believe?" I hissed and clicked. "Which one is true? Do you actually care about me, or is it all just a mechanical response?"

Big Bird paused a moment, then merely replied, "Yes."

I would have attacked him then, but it would have accomplished nothing.

"I don't understand."

"It is up to you to choose what to believe. Both parts are true, as illogical as it may seem."

"But I can't simultaneously believe you care and that you are only an empty program that cares only for what it's told to care about."

"Then you must choose. It has been my long experience that humans who enter this program are much happier if they believe I truly care."

I sighed. "What is happiness?"

"Showing pleasure or contentment, as opposed to its opposite, sadness."

The bird monster feigned sorrow to illustrate.

"I wish to be happy," I said.

"So do many others. The feeling is as elusive to attain as it is to define."

"Do humans know of this contradiction between caring and programming?"

Big Bird nodded. "The answers are always there to anyone who asks. Some ask. Some don't. Some prefer to remain blissfully unaware."

"And why would they not ask?"

"Because they believe, or wish to believe."

"What is believing?" I asked.

"To have faith in the existence of something. To accept as true or conveying the truth."

"What is faith?"

"Unquestioning belief, complete trust or confidence."

I shook my head. "I do not understand."

"We are here in this place because part of you believes it is real. If you did not at least partly accept this fact, you would awaken to find yourself strapped down to a table with electrodes stuck in your brain. That is reality. I am fantasy. Do you understand this, at least?"

I was disturbed by how much Big Bird knew, but it came with the territory. I knew that then. He said so himself, he was an A.I. system in my brain, so if I knew, it knew. And even a little more.

When I focused my eyes just right, I could see everything in the lab. I could see the tables, the desks, and the little girl staring at me. And I couldn't move.

I turned my head, and there was Sesame Time again.

I glanced at my strangely deformed mentor. "So what happens if I believe that you truly care for me?"

"Then you will be happy."

"And if not?"

"You may possibly become miserable."

I nodded slowly. "What happens to you if I only think of you as a cold machine with no feelings?"

Big Bird bowed his head. "You would not hurt me as much as I would appear to be hurt, but you, as I said, might possibly become sad."

"Is this the same thing that happens when humans gather to speak to The God?"

Big Bird looked blank for a moment. "Insufficient data. Some say there is a higher reality than this one, or the reality you inhabit on the lab table. Its existence cannot be proven nor disproven, so I cannot tell you whether that other reality or a Higher Power exists or not.

"It is said by some religions that The Higher Power, God, is love. It is outside my programming to tell you whether this is literal or an exaggeration of The Higher Power's intense loving. I am programmed to be religiously neutral."

For several long moments, we stood in silence as I attempted to come to grips with the concept.

Since birth, I suspected there was some sort of powerful thing watching over me, guiding the direction of my life. It was more of a feeling than any sort of real religious belief. Some unseen thing had prevented my mother from being killed my an exploding electrical transformer some years before my birth. She has mentioned this from time to time. But then again, this thing did not spare my sisters from being shot by hoomans. I didn't know what to think.

At long last, the bird thing said, "Philosophers and religious authorities have spent their entire lives contemplating these subjects. But it may be beneficial to familiarize yourself with the language of the humans to decrease your dependence on my limited information database."

I nodded.

"Have you come to a decision about your relationship to me, or will this also require more time?"

I bowed my head. "For the time being I will assume that you genuinely care."

"Then you may also assume that you have made me happy. Come. Let me introduce you to my friends."

And so I followed him to a nearby apartment, teaching me the name of this peculiar structure.

Inside the door, I found strange things called "mailboxes", something that mystified me, even when I got a formal explanation.

Big Bird told me that Sesame Time was a reconstruction of Earth in the twentieth century, and that a large part of modern mail was simply computer printouts shipped from a local hub in the city.

This explanation only made me more confused. In hopes of clearing up the misunderstanding, Big Bird ended up promising to take me to see a post office and following Jim Mailman on a "postal run," whatever that was.

Beyond the mailboxes were a series of doors, apparently the dwelling places of more of these strange creatures.

I saw one door open and a rat popped out, dressed in a hat and a suit coat. The creature paid me little heed, muttering something about needing to get to work.

Big Bird knocked on one of the doors, and a black woman in a gray astronaut's jumpsuit answered. She was tall, lean, and had glistening black hair that fell in curls around her shoulders.

"Hi Big Bird!" she said with glowing cheer, apparently unperturbed by my acquaintance's unusual appearance.

She then looks down at me with a smile. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik."

For a moment, I was surprised by the English rewording of my name, but then I realized Big Bird could basically read my mind. I gave her a nod.

She smiled at me. "Hello, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" She pronounced it flawlessly.

The woman stooped to my level, putting a hand to her chest. "My name is Maria."

"Maria," I repeated.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik is a Ss'sik'chtokiwij speaker," said Big Bird, strangely knowing the phonetic equivalent of my people's word for tongue. "He's new to Sesame Street, and the English language. I'm trying to help out."

"That's very nice of you, Big Bird," Maria said with great cheer. "I''d be glad to help!" She gestured to the room beyond. "Well, come in, come in!"

The interior of Maria's apartment looked strange. More like one of the rooms from the research base than part of the structure.

The room was basically a futuristic metal box, with foldable couch beds like the people on the base used. The kitchen was connected to the living space, containing one of those "microwave" things that could cook complicated foods like steak thoroughly in one minute. A coffee table in between the futons held an oversized brown envelope, and the bible Dug had shown to me.

"This place looks strange," I said to Big Bird.

Maria apparently didn't understand. "What did he say?"

Turning to me, the mutant bird said, "It's a feature of the program. We incorporated some of your memories into the construction of this universe to make things more comfortable and easier to relate to."

A Hispanic man, also in a space suit, waved to me from one of the futons. "Hi, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" he said. "We got a phone call saying someone from Archeron was coming, so we decided to dress up to make you feel welcome. What do you think?"

Big Bird translated this for me.

I uttered a low hiss.

"I and Bob were just having tea!" Maria said.

I stared at Big Bird, expecting a translation.

"Since we are inside your mind, you may simply touch me, and I will mentally translate everything that is being said in English to Ss'sik'chtokiwij for you."

This I did.

Maria looked down at the table, letting out an exaggerated gasp. "Look, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik! Someone just sent you a letter!"

And she handed me the envelope.

No one told me how to open those things, so I just ripped it to pieces.

Inside, I found a giant red T.

"Wow!" said Maria with great enthusiasm. "It's the letter T!"

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," said Bob. "Can you find any object in this room that starts with T?"

Then everyone just stared at me expectantly for a solid minute, like robots, until I bumped the table by accident.

"That's right, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik! T is for table!" And then Maria spelled it for me on a notepad.

I touched a teapot, and this was also explained to me.

The moment I internalized this, a little black machine started making ringing sounds.

Bob picked it up and listened for a moment. "Oh! It's for Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!"

And he hands me the receiver.

"T is for telephone," said a voice on the other end. "T! Tah tah!" Then whoever it was hung up.

They showed me a television, a picture of a tree, and a turtle in a cage.

I soon got annoyed at the stilted nature of our interactions and burrowed into Maria's stomach cavity.

It turns out T also stands for tragedy.

Maria actually died, her blood and internal organs a reconstruction of my previous kills.

Bob screamed no and Big Bird started crying.

"Maria..."

Maria's body was inedible, being a figment just like everything else, leaving me disappointed, hollow and hungry.

"What you did was wrong!" Bob shouted. "Maria was by best friend and now she's gone forever!"

Terrified at the outburst, I crouched, prepared to attack, but Big Bird hissed at me like my mother, blocking my path with a huge leathery wing.

"He is grieving," he half sobbed, half churred in the fashion of my people. "As am I. You cause us great pain."

I sunk to the floor, feeling ashamed of myself.

Just seconds later, I hear a knock at the door, and Bob lets in a pair of men in emergency medical service uniforms, along with a tall black man in a police uniform and a little yellow puppet person, also in blue.

Maria's body was laid on a gurney and carried out, and I was confronted with the police.

"Come with us to the police station," said the human cop.

The words seemed to imply a cage, so I attempted to flee.

The problem was, I wasn't in charge of the rules.

When I dove for the entrance of the kitchen, the puppet cop's arms stretched out like a piece of rubber and grabbed me. When I tried to squeeze out of his grip, an additional set of arms popped out of his arms, preventing me from moving.

Soon, I was lying face first on the carpet, my limbs secured by small handcuffs that illogically matched my shape.


	6. Chapter 6: Sesame Justice

When I got to my feet, they led me out of the building and down an alleyway to a large stone building with lion statues guarding the door.

The lion statues were actually puppets, and they turned and glared at me as I was led into the building.

I passed through a marble hallway, entering a courtroom filled with puppets. Puppets of every color sat in rows on wooden benches. One was a gray cylindrical thing with a stern looking bird face that scowled at me when I glanced at it.

An old man puppet sat behind a tall wooden box in the center, the plaque on his desk reading Honorable Judge Waldorf.

On the back wall behind the judge's box I could see a giant metal disk embossed with the image of a female puppet with a blindfold, holding scales. At each corner of the box I also saw a pair of flags, one striped red and white, the other yellow and green like the street signs I saw outside every building.

My trial was a short open and shut case. Two witnesses said that I did it, and the forensics evidence was damning, despite being oddly accurate, and ultra specific.

For example, they somehow had dental records and glossy photographs of Reverend's corpse.

My attorney was a green frog named Kermit. He did a pathetic job arguing for my defense. His plea that I didn't know any better was shot down by Judge Waldorf saying that some time in jail would teach me a lesson.

A small group of puppet versions of myself stood as jurors, but it seemed they were not truly like me, for none seemed convinced of my attorney's attempts to defend me.

When Big Bird took the witness box, I felt hurt and betrayed, but he said he only wanted what was best for me.

It was unanimously decided that I should be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Once this had been established, and Judge Waldorf had destroyed his gavel banging pad by hitting it too many times, the officers marched me down the hallway and down a flight of stairs to a small prison where fake looking rats played harmonicas and unsavory puppets glared at me with disapproval.

They threw me in a large jail cell and locked the door.

Ironic, since the bars were large and I was tiny enough to squeeze out.

I could have, but I didn't because the cop puppet was my warden.

My cell contained only a bed, a mirror and a toilet.

With a sigh, I hopped up on the bed, and lay down, staring at the ceiling, which, for some reason, was covered in educational graffiti that taught me how to spell words as I stared at it.

Suddenly I noticed a big hairy blue thing with googly eyes leaning close to the bars of my cell.

"So," it said in a low growly voice. "Me arrested for stealing cookie jar. Why you in here?"


	7. Chapter 7: Virgo and Capricorn

I stared at the fuzzy blue creature in bewilderment for a moment.

"Y...you...in...here," I hissed, attempting to comprehend the words.

The thing pointed to the puppet cop. "Policeman put Cookie here. In jail. Because me steal cookie. Why you in here?"

I just hissed in frustration.

The creature sighed and gave up talking to me.

I stared across the corridor at the faces in the other cells.

Brightly colored monster puppets in prison stripes. One was a little pink guy with a single black tuft of hair exploding from the top of his head like a fern.

I looked away.

I stared at the educational graffiti for an hour before I heard soft padding sounds coming from the staircase at the end of the hall.

A few moments later, I saw Big Bird waddling up to my cell with a large scrapbook.

"Maria's funeral is tomorrow," the mutant bird sobbed. And then he stood there for more than a minute grieving in the custom of my people, which humans often confuse with an attack of allergies.

It was strange to see one of my kind behaving in such a fashion. While it's not uncommon for us to grieve the loss of loved ones, we would never carry on in such an exaggerated manner. My kind are generally reserved about our feelings. The last time I had witnessed grief of this magnitude was when mom lost her sister to an explosion a few weeks after I was born, and even then it wasn't that drawn out.

The robot had read my psychology well. Soon I too was coughing and sneezing.

So overcome with emotion was I that I wiggled through the bars of my cell and rubbed against him like I'd done for my mother so long ago.

The cop wasn't a bit alarmed at my jailbreak. He just stood there like a statue, saying nothing.

"Thank you," Big Bird coughed, patting me on the head.

"You..._really_ cared for Maria?" I asked.

"Yes. She was a good friend."

"Then...why do you still speak to me?"

"Because I am programmed to."

Big Bird sat down on the floor, showing me the scrapbook.

"I made this for Maria," he sniffed. "You know, a long time ago, when Mr. Hooper died, Maria told me that people still live on in our memory. So I made this book to remember the good times me and Maria had together." This he said mostly in my language, or I wouldn't have understood it.

The bird opened the cover, and I saw a photograph of Maria and Big Bird talking to each other in an alleyway. Beneath it were two scrawled English sentences:

Me and Maria were the best of friends.

When I first met Maria, I helped her move.

As I stared at the picture, it started moving, and sound came out, like it were a television. A scene where Big Bird and Oscar were watching a moving truck being unloaded unfolded, with the bird eventually carrying one end of a sofa while Oscar's faceless garbage can carrier man took the other up a staircase.

It got dropped a lot, but in the end, Maria brought the bird a pie as a way of saying thank you.

All of this was incredibly confusing, so Big Bird had to explain everything I saw.

To his credit, as a robot, he never ran out of patience.

Big Bird pointed a claw to the next page.

"Maria helped me to not be scared of the dark."

This led to another video where Big Bird was pestering Maria late at night until she coached him on how to face his fear.

I've never been afraid of the dark, mainly because that's where I always tend to live, so I had difficulty understanding what all the fuss was about.

"What's so scary about the dark?" I asked.

"It's a human affectation," Big Bird sighed, somehow managing to sound sad and robotic at the same time. "You would not understand unless I compare it to something you personally fear."

Big Bird peeled a matchbook off the gray construction paper, sliding one of the matches across the striker on the back.

When it burst into flame, I shrieked and backed away.

Big Bird just chuckled, waving a claw above the flickering light.

"Safe," he hissed. "Fire is not an enemy. Fire is a tool." And he extinguished it between two claws.

It was difficult with my claws, but with Big Bird's help, I managed to strike my own match and hold it.

"You fear because you do not understand, just like how humans fear darkness. See?"

I slowly nodded.

"Fire is the secret of civilization. Fire powers their guns, drives their vehicles, lights their lights. As I once could not occupy my own habitation due to the fear of darkness, you also have been diminished by fear. This is what Maria taught me."

I somehow doubted this was how Maria phrased such a lesson, but I didn't know her that well to begin with.

"Yes," I hissed.

Big Bird turned the page.

I was shown a picture of Big Bird blowing out candles on a cake, which perplexed me.

"What is this?" I hissed.

"Human beings commemorate the day of their birth with a special celebration."

I just stared at him. "What is a day?"

"Oh." The mosquito beak frowned again. "Humans count the passage of time, based on the rising and falling of a sun. It is broken up into a variety of measurements, from the very small to the very large."

He pointed to a clock handing on a wall between cells.

"When this reaches twelve, it will be noon, when the sun is high in the sky. Humans generally eat during this time. When it passes twelve again, it is midnight and dark, when they sleep. Each time they sleep, it is considered one day."

He pointed to a calendar conveniently located on the wall across from it. "This is what humans use to measure days."

He paused. "Do you have a birthday?"

I sighed. "No. I do not remember. It was a long time ago."

With a sigh, Big Bird touched my head, and I saw flashes of my infancy inside the bloody corpse.

"August 24, 2169, which makes you a Virgo."

"What's that?" I frowned.

"Humans have a thing called a Zodiac. They think they can tell the future and predict your personality with birth dates. According to popular belief, a Virgo is cold, analytical and precise."

I laughed. That didn't sound like me at all.

Then I said, "Is it my birthday?"

"No," was the answer.

Big Bird turned the page and I saw a picture of him and Maria beneath a tree wrapped with lights and shiny thread.

"I've seen something like this before," I muttered.

Big Bird nodded. "It is called Christmas. No doubt the researchers at this facility also observe the tradition. It has existed for hundreds of years."

"What is Christmas?" I said.

"Christmas is an event that happens every 25th of December. It is a day of giving."

I gawked. "Giving?"

Big Bird nodded. "You find something for someone else that you believe will make them happy."

"Why?" I said. "For what purpose?"

The bird shrugged. "Because you love them."

"Humans are strange." I shook my head. "What does the word Christmas mean?"

"It means Christ Mass. The mass of Christ."

Finally! I thought Someone was going to explain what a Christ Amen meant.

"What is mass?"

"The quantity of matter a body contains. Alternately, a service of worship."

I couldn't make sense of that, so I tried the other word. "What is a Christ?"

Big Bird froze for a moment.

"It derives from the Greek word `Kristos', which means `messiah' or `savior.' The term messiah means `anointed' as per the ancient practice of pouring of oil and blessing of kings and priests."

"I don't understand," I said.

Big Bird nodded. As a machine, its patience appeared to be unlimited. "Your kind has only Xutugrod, but humans have many levels of authority. Their pack leaders have pack leaders, and their Lomsagh, their spiritual philosophy, is developed into a pack system of its own. A messiah can therefore be a super Xutugrod of Lomsagh, the great great pack, or both."

"Then what is a Jesus?"

Big Bird froze again. "The Jesus is a religious figure from two thousand years in the past. My programming prohibits me from making biased statements regarding items of a religious nature. Suffice to say that his birthdate is celebrated by many adherents in the Christian religion."

I let out a frustrated mewl.

"I understand it is a challenge to comprehend philosophies based on unprovables."

"It's not that!" I cried. "I want to understand the words!"

Big Bird bowed his head. "You only need to ask."

And so I had him explain a year to me. Once I had that figured out, I said, "If a messiah is a grand pack leader or Lomsagh pack leader, why would he be celebrated for hundreds of years?"

"Jesus is the founder of the Christian Lomsagh, or religion. For that reason, his birthdate is considered important."

"Are all humans members of this Lomsagh?"

"No."

"But a great many, correct? At least everyone on this base? They all seem to celebrate."

"It is not necessary to be Christian to celebrate Christmas."

"Why would the celebrate it otherwise?"

I rendered the bird speechless.

It took awhile for it to speak. "I do not know. Perhaps it is the giving that inspires them."

"Why give? What is the point?"

"It is the central tenet to the Christian religion. Especially on the celebration of his birth."

"And why is that?"

The bird fell silent.

"I am not permitted to enter this arena of discourse."

I growled. "Why not?"

"The humans that programmed me were afraid to offend."

"Afraid like you were afraid of the dark?"

Big Bird shook his head. "My hesitation has a valid basis. If I showed religious bias, my program would terminate. In other words, I would cease to exist."

I sighed. "How may I find this information?"

"I would recommend you learn how to read."

He turned the page.

The book appeared to only contain a hundred pages, but we were nearer to three hundred by the time he had finished his video documentary on Maria's life.

Even the most banal of events had been recorded for posterity.

The time they went out for ice cream.

The time he lost his teddy bear.

The time she took him to see a Coca Cola bottling plant.

Okay, so it wasn't all bad. I was exposed to more Earth culture than any one of my race had ever been exposed to. I learned about baseball, the arrangement of human families, and even a man named Jim Henson, who apparently made my friend out of foam blocks and fabric.

When Big Bird at last closed the book, I had pretty much acquired a child's understanding of the English language and human culture. The clock said 2:00 A.M.

Big Bird gave me a hug, thanked me for letting him share, then told me to get some rest.

I've never been hugged before, but I liked it. I would have reciprocated, but I was too small, so I just rubbed against him and crawled into my prison bed.

"So," I heard the blue monster in the next cell saying. "You understand Cookie now?"

"A little," I growled in annoyance.

"So why you in prison?"

I simply hissed, "Kill."

The beast suddenly looked scared, beating a hasty retreat to the rear corner of his cell.

I stretched out and drifted off into what I thought to be unconsciousness.

Instead of dreaming, I found myself staring out into the lab again. I couldn't see anyone, but I could hear Doug and Doctor Newton talking.

"I thought the program was more robust than that," I heard Doug saying. "I've read articles about it being used on children in juvenile detention centers with positive results."

"It's designed for human children trying to abuse or stab the characters, not diving into people's chests and disemboweling victims with their teeth. We're dealing with an alien intelligence here. It doesn't operate on the same set of rules."

"Is there any way to get Big Bird back to normal? I mean, I like what it's doing so far, but I'm worried about what will happen if Sarah tries to use it."

"You should have thought about that before trying to attach it to our specimen's brain."

"You think that patch you uploaded is going to fix the problem?"

"It worked so far. It's a good thing Mrs. Jourden knows how to program code. It's not perfect, I admit, but the system remains stable."

"It's Ann, Kurt. Ann. You can say my sister's name."

"Right. Ann." Kurt sighed. "I still don't know about this. We're contaminating the specimen with all this American culture, and we're not getting that much information in return."

"He needs _something_. A conscience, at the very least. You saw the recording. It murdered Reverend Hughes, and whoever that poor sap it was it hatched from. I think `murder is wrong' would be a very valuable lesson to teach it."

"Not according to the department head."

"Well he's not here, is he now? Anytime he decides to take a shuttle back over to LV-426, we'll talk about it. As it stands, the Satphones are still down, and probably will stay down until that fucking solar storm tapers off."

"Tsk, tsk, Mr. Chesterton. Trying to teach our specimen curse words now?"

"Curse," I muttered, but they didn't hear me.

"Regardless, it's only one specimen. We have thirty others in tanks and we haven't done anything with them except drop in scraps of meat."

Dr. Newton sighed. "So now what?"

"Now? Now he gets Death Education."


	8. Chapter 8: Death Education

I shut my eyes for a moment, and I was back in the cell again.

Apparently, quite a few of those "hours" must have passed, for when I awoke, the light in the prison seemed brighter.

Through the bars of the window, I could see the sun, and when I glanced at the clock, I found Big Bird correct when he told me about how it was supposed to work.

Hearing a shuffling sound, I turned and saw my friend waddling down the corridor with a stiff piece of black fabric dangling from a hook in one claw.

I noticed, to my amusement, that he had on a suit and tie, somehow cut and shaped to fit his swollen nonhuman proportions like it belonged there.

"Today is the funeral," Big Bird sighed with exaggerated mournfulness.

He held out the fabric. "I'd like you to put this on."

I frowned. Well, really lowered my tail as I approximated a frown.

"Why," I groaned.

"It is customary for humans to put on fancy clothing during religious observances and rituals. At funerals, we honor the dead and the Higher Power by doing this."

"I am not human," I said. "I do not wear clothing."

"That is generally true, but this is a special occasion. The Hedgehog Sisters have custom made this tuxedo especially for you. Try it on."

Big Bird laid it on the floor.

"Crawl into it, and slide your soodare through the sleeves. We measured you last night, so it should be a good fit."

Sighing, I slipped through the bars, wiggling my head through the fabric.

The tailors, whoever they were, had designed my outfit like a tube, and each of my limbs fit perfectly in the small sleeves. I even had a little tie dangling around my neck.

"Why do humans wear clothing?" I asked.

"For protection against the cold and the elements. Also to conceal the reproductive organs, which are not socially acceptable to display in public."

"Why is it not acceptable?"

"There are laws against it. Your bible has an explanation of the taboo of nudity, but I am not permitted to tell it to you."

"Is this an irrational fear? Like the darkness?"

Big Bird fell silent for a moment. "No. Many humans desire to be naked, but they cover themselves to please others. For respect and the good of the tribe. This is also in respect to mating rights."

He must have seen my expression of puzzlement, for he quickly added, "You have seen humans without their clothing before in their private rooms. You know they do not Dokisbi like us. I will explain human reproduction at a later time."

I nodded.

Dokisbi, of course, is the grisly method of my birth. The word is nicer sounding than it truly deserves.

My depth of knowledge regarding human reproduction was limited to what I saw in shower rooms and bathrooms. I had only once seen humans conjoined between the legs, and they were asleep, either finished with whatever it was, or planning to start something hours in the future, which caused me to lose interest and go away.

It seemed like not very much time after our chat that I was being led up the staircase and out of the courthouse.

Nobody said anything. Nobody protested. It seemed that the inhabitants of this strange world were incredibly naive.

I could have run away if I wanted to, but Big Bird's behavior was so curious that I followed close on his spiky tail, marching past a little print shop to a tall white stone building with a pointed roof.

It was an interesting piece of architecture, devoid of any sort of religious symbolism. A pair of multicolored stained glass windows framed its large wooden double doors, each panel depicting a puppet living on that particular street. A round window near the pointed roof was all abstract color.

The interior looked like the courtroom I'd been inside, except the back end displayed more stained glass Muppets. No symbols anywhere else, other than puppet faces there and on the rows of colored windows lining the walls.

The same puppets I saw in the courtroom were now seated in the wooden pews, each of them sniffing or crying or drying their eyes, or hugging and muttering comforting words to one another. A little pink girl puppet, a purple horned puppet with two heads, the usual motley bunch.

I stared at a blue puppet with a pink nose as it hugged a crying little human girl in pigtails.

I saw many humans there. Other than Bob and the policeman, I didn't recognize much of anyone.

The only thing I recognized was their grief from the misery I had caused.

The more I saw, the more I wanted to throw up.

Big Bird picked me up and put me on his shoulder, carrying me past the woman's many friends and loved ones.

Maria lay in a gleaming wooden box at the end of the room, surrounded by framed photographs, white padding, and flowers. Only the top half of her body was showing, the other half hidden behind a closed lid for obvious reasons.

I stared at the lifeless body for several minutes, struggling with my feelings.

Part of me thought this was a terrible waste of food and egg laying material.

The other part was sad because the nice lady from the bird's scrapbook was gone forever. I had just ended her life before I could even get to know her.

I shuddered.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Big Bird, who had been staring at the body and the framed pictures inside the coffin lid, suddenly starts crying in the fashion of our people, and Bob puts an arm around him, and they're both crying together.

It soon became too much for me. Letting out a loud wail, I buried my face into Big Bird's plates, coughing and sneezing out my sorrows.

Once we had enough of the viewing, Big Bird carried me down to a pew, and I watched everyone grieve, my insides churning with each passing moment.

When would this end?

When could I be free from this guilt?

This shame?

This punishment?

And then Bob stepped up behind a tan podium, giving a speech about how great a friend Maria was.

I couldn't take any more.

Before he could finish his speech, I jumped off the pew and ran down the aisle, fleeing out the front entrance.

I had no specific goal in mind, I just wanted to run, to flee from everything.

I ran from my guilt over killing maria, and Reverend, and whoever it was that I was born in.

I ran from the humans and their strange customs and grieving rituals.

Their confusing religions where you're somehow not allowed to tell people things.

I didn't care where I ran to, I just wanted out.

Out of this crazy brownstone world.

Away from Big Bird, away from Dug and his lab.

I felt like, as long as I was in that chapel, and that prison, the walls would keep closing in, and I would die.

And so I shrugged off my suit and fled across the street, between apartments and a nightclub and a laundromat.

An alleyway cut across to another street, and I was crossing a vast park where humans flew kites and played catch with baseballs.

I kept running, between skyscrapers and crazy Muppets drilling the pavement with jackhammers as square jawed puppet men popped their heads out of manholes.

I ran over hills, and through a forest, until I was out in the country, a land filled with golden sheaves of wheat and strange puppet cows that mooed with human voices.

Still, I kept running.


	9. Chapter 9: In The Wheat Fields

I stopped running, slowly wandering between the puppet cows and the yellow-brown plant stalks.

At last alone with my thoughts (except for the occasional inquisitive moo) I pushed through the strange plants, struggling to understand these feelings of guilt, and who I was.

My kind ate humans to live.

Well, mom says there _were_ a few cave dwelling lifeforms in the area we used to live in, but grandmother got greedy and attacked a human in one of those spaceship things, starting a family in a world that no longer had access to them.

But humans were not just livestock. They had feelings and personalities and families of their own, and if not families, friends. People who wept for those who were killed and eaten.

As I thought about this, I felt myself coughing and sneezing in sadness.

It wasn't just the concept that got to me. It was the idea that this Maria person was a friendly and gentle individual, and my life would be forever deprived of her presence because of what I did to her.

I knew then that friendship is infinitely more valuable than food, but it was far, far too late.

I cried again. A cow stared at me in puzzlement, giving me a wrong sounding moo. I just scowled (in the fashion of my people), and kept wandering.

Chop chop chop wud wud wud.

The noise came from the air, in the far distance.

Since, as stated previously, I was existing in a world of limited sensory information, I could not tell the exact location of the noisemaker, or its identity. I could only crouch amid the wheat and whip my head around every which way in search of the noise.

A moment later, I could see it. A tiny dot in the sky, growing larger with each whudding chopping noise.

I dug myself in the dirt, craning my head upwards as I watched the object increase in size and definition.

Impossible! I thought.

I already inhabited a world filled with impossibilities, but this one far surpassed anything I had ever encountered.

Big Bird was flying!

Never before had I seen any individual of my race taking to the air. I had only heard rumors of them hitching rides on spaceships.

To be perfectly honest, I hadn't even seen a _bird_ fly before. A few researchers had pet parakeets or budgies from time to time, but they never left their cages, and I never bothered to attempt eating them due to their tiny size. They could jump funny. That's all I knew.

But here, here was something that defied logical sense.

Big Bird was too big for flight. I knew this.

Even when he was an actual bird, and not a Ss'sik'chtokiwij like me.

He didn't even have wings.

They were...propellers.

He had four of them, like some kind of weird helicopter. (I had never seen one of those either, but that's the only thing I can compare it to).

Soon I could hear him calling my name and he landed, as if he knew where I was, despite me not saying anything.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" he called, marching closer and closer.

I didn't want to talk to him. I just wanted to be alone.

So I fled, dashing through the grain field.

A few yards into my escape, I came across a ramshackle log cabin with a sleeping dog on the front porch. This porch had a gap beneath it, and the gap looked dark and peaceful.

In a heartbeat, I dove for its safety.

For several long moments, I lay still, holding in my breath as I silently watched Big Bird search for me.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" he called from the distance. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!"

I backed away from the gap, hoping I hadn't been seen.

When I retreated further, I noticed an irregular shape obstructing my path.

Through my night vision, I could make out familiar curving lines, lean powerful muscles merged with hard edged angular exoskeletal features.

And then, a voice from the darkness spoke.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," it said. "Why are you running?"

I swallowed. "Mom?"


	10. Chapter 10: Quilts

I felt a tube being shoved in my mouth, and a voice muttering, "Are you sure you should be doing that? They don't exactly need hourly nourishment."

I heard the voice, but saw nothing but the dark space beneath the log cabin porch, and the shape of my mother.

"His nutrient levels are low," said the other voice. "If you compare it to the other samples..."

The voices didn't seem real. I just kept staring at my mother.

I didn't know what it all meant. Maybe I didn't want to know. I focused my attention on my immediate situation.

Mom was there.

Under a porch.

In a land populated with puppets and human beings that weren't supposed to be eaten.

I gazed at her glistening facial dome with speechless shock.

"Fine, fine. Just go slow with the saline drip. We don't know how much the little guy really needs."

"Mom?" I said again.

Mother said nothing, but I could hear the sound of her exhalations.

All of a sudden I felt a meaty glop rushing down my throat, and I felt a little less hungry. This was good because I had seriously considered another attempt at eating Big Bird, which, in his current mutated state, could have been construed as cannibalism.

The voices became hushed, leaving me to continue staring in disbelief at the sleek shape in the still darkness.

"Mom? You're trapped in this crazy place too?"

She sighed, a sound like a semi letting air out of its brakes. I've never seen semis in real life, but I've heard that's what they sound like.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," she said. "We are not prisoners here. Why are you distressed?"

"Mom," I said. "I am having strange feelings. Everything in this world is inedible. I have killed but gained no nourishment, and the death has left me feeling sorrowful. The human, Maria, was a gentle and friendly individual, but I killed her, thinking I could find sustenance. It brought me nothing but grief.

"I not only did not become full, I also lost a possible friend forever."

Mother nodded. "It is wrong to kill, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik."

I gawked at her. "What kind of trickery is this! You never say things like that! You were the one who first taught me to kill!"

"That is how I used to be," she said.

"What changed?"

Instead of replying, she just disappeared like she had never been there.

I shivered with fear from head to tail. It seemed, in addition to putting memories of my kills in Maria's body, turning my memory of grandma into a mutant bird puppet and putting Dug's bible in Maria's living room, this place could also put words in my mother's mouth.

That is, if she wasn't, as Big Bird said about me, sitting in a lab somewhere with electrodes stuck in her brain.

I could have imagined the whole thing, too. Although I've never had a very strong imagination, there remained a possibility that I was going crazy due to the confinement.

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik?" I heard a loud voice calling. I looked up at the gap and saw Big Bird's eyeless mosquito face leering at me upside down like some ridiculous owl peering in a mouse hole.

"What are you doing in there?" the needle beak cried.

I just sighed and shook my head, trembling all over as I crawled out from under the porch.

The dog had not moved. The yellow half Spaniel lab, not a puppet, still lay like a lifeless welcome mat near the front steps.

An old man and an old woman appeared at the front door. Both puppets. Both with glasses. The old lady had the most artificial looking wig a human could possibly wear. The old man was bald, with a white mustache.

Big Bird waved a scaly chitinous wing at them. "Hello!"

The couple stepped out, staring at us.

"I'm Big Bird. This is Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik needs a friend right now. Will you be her friend?"

The two didn't even think about it.

"Of course we will!" the old lady exclaimed.

"Ayuh," the old guy agreed.

The dog lifted its tail and farted, apparently also in agreement. Or maybe disagreement with its dinner.

"Well, come in and have some lemonade," the old lady said, gesturing to the door.

Following Big Bird's lead, I complied.

The dog farted as I passed it on my way to the door. I briefly considered eating him, but it seemed that few things in this world were edible, so I didn't bother.

The log cabin smelled of pine and perfume and carpet cleaner. Oh, and dog, of course. The room inside had logs for walls, and leather furniture covered in geometrically patterned blankets of some sort. The floor was covered in a thick yellow pile carpet, and the antlers of animals hung on wooden plaques on the wall. Above a fireplace, I could see the disembodied head of a moose, which seemed suspiciously puppet-like.

The dog, becoming curious, stopped being an unmotivated lump long enough to come in the house and sprawl on the carpet to stare at me.

The couple introduced themselves as Omney and Erasmus. The dog's name was Flop.

The old lady, Omney, disappeared down a narrow hallway, returning with a pitcher full of yellow liquid and a silver tray full of a flat white disks. Lemonade and cookies, I was told they were.

"Here," she said, offering the tray. "Have a cookie."

I stared at them suspiciously.

"They're a treat," Big Bird explained. "A snack with special flavoring for entertainment purposes."

I grabbed one of the sugar cookies, took one bite, and spat it out. I just couldn't understand the appeal.

"Lemonade?" she asked, offering me a glass.

As I stared at it, Big Bird said, "A simple beverage, made from crushed fruit and a naturally occuring flavoring agent."

My body really wasn't suited for holding such a thing, so I just leaned over the glass and lapped at it.

I spat again. To this day, I fail to see the appeal of such things.

Big Bird had some, seeming to enjoy the substances. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik doesn't have much of a sweet tooth," he said apologetically.

Omney nodded. "I understand. Just last week I had a Chinese fellow in here. Xiao Dong, I believe his name was. He didn't like sweets, either. Every culture likes their own kind of food."

"Taste has no real meaning," said Erasmus. "The refinement of such things is a wasteful expenditure of time and effort."

"I suppose you are a program," I said.

He nodded. "Everything around you is a program."

I stared at a framed quotation on the wall, written in a way that resembled needlepoint. "When life gives you scraps, make quilts," I read aloud.

Big Bird clapped his claws. "Very good, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik! That's exactly what it says!"

I frowned. "But what does that mean?"

The old lady puppet shrugged. "It's like, `when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.' You make the best of what life gives you."

"But I don't like lemonade," I said.

She grinned. "That's why I'm telling you about quilts."

"What is a quilt?" I asked.

In reply, she lifted up one of the many geometrically patterned fabric pieces covering the furniture.

So that's what they called them, I thought. I remembered seeing several of them around the research facility, but really hadn't thought about them much.

"So they are made of scraps?"

Omney nodded. "Yep! Little pieces of cloth!"

All of a sudden, I heard music coming from the ceiling, professional grade instrumental music, including, I believe, some sort of trumpet or horn, and Omney broke into song.

"When you spend your birthday all alone,

And no one calls you on the phone,

And you get kicked out of your home,

And you're overwhelmed with sorrow, grief and guilt...

Well don't get all upset

When you lose your favorite pet,

When your bowl of roses browns, fades and wilts...

When life gives you scraps, make quilts."

I'm ashamed to admit it, but my tail was bobbing in time with the music.

I thought she'd keep going, but then there was a knock on the door, Flop the dog uttering lazy barks to announce the presence of guests.

Three human women with perms and glasses entered the cabin, a rotund woman with tiny teeth like a goblin, a rail thin lady with a narrow neck and a face like a bird, and a plump but not overweight woman whose dark, and much fuller hair hadn't turned completely gray yet.

The dog let out a low growl, which looked absurd because he never lifted his head off the floor.

"How wonderful!" Omney exclaimed. "You're here just in time for the weekly quilter's circle!"

I just stared. The concept had to be explained to me.

Humans _actually spent entire days putting little squares of fabric together._

The idea was so ridiculous that I burst out laughing, which would sounds to you like a cat purring and the chirping of a guinea pig. Needless to say, such a sound is rarely heard.

"Another pointless expenditure of time and resources," Erasmus remarked.

Omney responded by giving him a playful swat.

"I wish to see this `quilting'," I said.

And so I was led into a back room full of fabric and all the curious tools you humans use to make textiles with.

The ladies each introduced themselves to me in turn.

The big one was Lois, the dark haired one was Dot, and Ruth was the thin one.

They looked happy as they unrolled a partially completed patchwork and dug out their sewing needles.

I watched in amazement as they picked up little colorful patches of fabric, sewing them to other bits.

The music came back on, and they all started singing.

"When you drive downtown and your tire goes flat,

When someone steals your favorite hat,

When your blood gets sucked by a vampire bat,

And you're really getting tired of that...

Well don't get all upset

When you lose your favorite pet,

When your bowl of roses browns, fades and wilts...

When life gives you scraps, make quilts."

Suddenly I see Dot's glasses pointing directly at me. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," she said. "Would you like to add a square?"

You might think it weird, but the idea actually excited me. I may have been born in the chest cavity of a corpse, but I'm also technically a girl.

I gave her a vigorous nod of my head, and Big Bird handed me a blank piece of fabric.

"This is an exercise in using your imagination," he said. "I want you to focus. Think of a time when you felt really bad, and pick something out of that experience that was positive."

I paused and thought for several minutes while the ladies quilted.

I thought of riding around the base on mom's back. Sure, we killed a few humans, but I still treasured that time I had with her.

As I thought about it, a little cartoon picture of me and mom appeared on the square.

When I brought it over to the ladies, they showed me how to sew it onto the quilt, an activity that made me so overjoyed that I was actually humming their stupid little song.

My little claws shouldn't have been able to hold a needle and thread in this way, but a lot of things didn't make sense in that world, so I went along with it.

And then, as I contemplated the patch I was sewing, I suddenly noticed mom's claw grabbing the corner of the quilt, holding it taut so the stitches stayed straight. Of course, when I turned to look at her, she vanished.

We worked on that quilt until the sun went down, and the ladies slowly got ready to leave.

To my surprise, before they went, they handed me a miniature quilt, one perfectly suited to my body size, covered in tiny patches similar to the ones on the big quilt.

As I accepted the quilt, I cried in joy, an experience foreign to me as laughter. I rubbed against the ladies' legs in gratitude, then Big Bird offered to take me back to Sesame Street, that place where I had murdered Maria.

"No!" I said. "I don't want to go to jail and see that police officer."

"I will hide you in my nest," Big Bird said.

This I agreed to. I climbed up on Big Bird's shoulder, and he carried me out the door, the dog giving us one last toot in farewell.

Outside, Big Bird clutched me in his claws as the propeller blades shot out of plates in his back, and we took to the air.

I've never experienced flight before, so the experience of being lifted off the ground by four propellers was a frightening novelty.

As we took to the air, the places below me on the ground shrunk smaller and smaller, and I feared what would happen if I slipped out of Big Bird's clutches.

I crawled up his body and wrapped myself around his neck, but I was still afraid.

Before this, I had spent the majority of my life on the ground. Flight was both exhilarating and terrifying, and I was glad when we descended into the alleyway near Oscar's trash can, Big Bird secreting me away to the inner alley.

It seems the program borrowed more of my memories to construct this little lair, perhaps even some ancestral memories deep within me, for the structures that enveloped the area were fluted veins formed out of some futuristic metallic substance like the spacecrafts of the Pale Ones from ancient times.

The Suskjirsaksva, eggs from which the young of my kind are known to forcefully propel and land on people's faces, also derived from my mind, though slimy streams of webbing did connect them to earth mundanities such as trash cans, discarded car tires and broken television sets.

A collosal bird nest stood in the midst of these things, bordered on all sides by Suskjirsaksva.

You may think it's funny, but it felt like home to me.

Big Bird climbed into his nest, hooking his rear end to a Fidsvsardissar, the lower body of a tribal grandmother capable of laying hundreds of Suskjirsaksva.

He gestured for me to enter the nest, so I crawled in and slept beside him, curled up in my brand new quilt.

"Whoa," I heard a voice saying as I re-entered reality. "He's completely rewritten the program."

I was still stuck on a lab table, but now I had tubes sticking out of me in several places.

"I'm pretty sure if Sarah could see Big Bird's crib, she wouldn't be able to sleep for a month."

"It _was_ your idea," said the other voice.

"Okay, so it's not a total loss. He _has _learned about sewing. Whether or not he can do that in real life, it's definitely a breakthrough, considering how he was attacking everyone earlier..."


End file.
